In co-operation with the Modern German History Seminar, Institute of Historical Research (IHR).
Is ‘globalization’ a threat to democracy? From the 1990s to the late 2010s, social scientists, economists, and historians in Western countries thought so. They worried about a loss of national sovereignty and agency, about national identity, and most of all about liberal democracy, which was based upon the national framing of state and society. This discourse was most prominent in post-unification Germany. The lecture will look at perceptions of ‘globalization’ and analyse the underlying assumptions about democracy and statehood. It argues that instead of a crisis of democracy, this was a crisis of national patterns of political thought dating back to the nineteenth century.
Julia Angster is Professor of Modern History at the University of Mannheim. Her fields of research include German contemporary history, transatlantic relations, the British Empire, and international relations. She studied at the University of Tübingen and St. John’s College, Oxford and completed her doctorate and habilitation at the University of Tübingen. From 2010 to 2012 she was professor of British and North American History at the University of Kassel.
This lecture will take place as a hybrid event at the GHIL and online via Zoom. In order to attend this event, please register via Eventbrite to take part in person or online.